Can’t decide between croissant and cookie? Have a crookie

On one of his many visits to Paris, the novelist Charles Dickens, like so many before and after him, fell victim to the considerable charms of the croissant. Speaking of “the dainty croissant on the boudoir table”, he contrasted the French pastry’s delicate, buttery appeal with the “dismal monotony” of English bread. One wonders what he would have made of its decidedly more robust 21st century descendent, the “crookie” (a croissant stuffed and topped with cookie dough and baked till the chocolate melts). Would he have denounced it as an abomination or seen the appeal of crossing the flaky texture of the croissant with the chewy, chocolatey all-American cookie?

Not that anyone needs the imagined verdict of the long-dead Victorian writer. The masses have spoken: The crookie, like the cronut (croissant stuffed with flavoured cream and shaped like a doughnut) and the cruffin (a muffin-croissant hybrid) before it, has become a runaway hit, inspiring takes across the world since its debut in Paris’s Maison Louvard in October 2022 and becoming social media’s most viral baking craze this March. Often described as “frankenpastry” — perhaps unfairly — what creations like the crookie, cronut and cruffin underline is that the most enduring foods are also the most versatile.

After all, even the classic crescent-shaped French croissant is only an iteration of the similarly-shaped Viennese pastry called the kipfel. It got its recognisable layers and air pockets only when the French patissiers switched the heavier dough used by Viennese bakers with puff pastry. Would the croissant have achieved its iconic status and worldwide fame if it had stayed true to the recipe? Dickens knew what he liked — as do the millions around the world who enjoy a fresh, hot croissant, with or without cookie dough.